Tamil Nadu to be hub of solar power

Tamil Nadu's Solar Energy Policy 2012 unveiled by Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa Saturday aims at making the southern state a regional solar energy hub. Under the scheme, the state will have solar energy parks, will encourage households to adopt solar energy, make it compulsory for all new government buildings to have rooftop solar panels and ask big industries to use solar power.

The scheme aims at generating 3,000 MW of solar power by 2015. According to the policy, Tamil Nadu has around 300 clear sunny days in a year and southern parts of the state are considered the ideal locations for development of solar power projects. The policy aims to set up 1,000 MW of solar power generation capacity during 2013-2015. As per the policy, the state would make it compulsory for high tension power consumers like special economic zones (SEZ), industries, IT parks, telecom towers, colleges and residential schools and buildings with built up area of 20,000 square metre or more to purchase six percent solar power from Jan 2014.

Tamil Nadu is set to become the solar energy hub of India